Visual Tracking

Tracking is a skill that is necessary for reading, writing, drawing and playing.  It is what allows us to follow along a line when we are reading, or follow an object about the room with our eyes.  There are various eye movements that our oculomotor system directs, but I won't go into detail on that in this post. We talk a lot in OT about the integration of our vision with other systems.  Within the visual system alone, we also want there to be integration between our central vision (which tells us what we are looking at) and our peripheral vision, or our side vision (which helps us locate objects off to the side of us). When we are reading, our central vision is processing what we are looking at (letters/words) and our peripheral vision is looking down the line to see what's coming up next.  If the 2 systems don't work well together, then reading smoothly and tracking along the line when reading can be difficult. Smooth tracking typically develops around the age of 5.

Any activity that requires your child to visually scan can work on tracking as well as the use of both central and peripheral vision.  Here are some ideas for you to try to encourage visual tracking:

-have your child track an object or a light from side to side and up and down.  Don't forget to also practice doing so without moving his/her head to track.

-have your child locate various things around the room by shining a flashlight on them (you tell them what to find, and they look about the room to locate it and shine a flashlight on it).

-place various cards or pictures out on a table- have your child find and pick up the card or match the card or picture by scanning the table to find the card that they are looking for.  You can do the same things with having various objects placed on the table.

Matching lower case letters to upper case letters.

-play "I Spy"

-play a memory game with the cards spread out on the floor or table.

-participate in ball activities, bat a ballon back and forth.  Suspend a balloon from the ceiling with yarn and have your child practice batting it.

-Blow bubbles and have your child reach out and pop the bubbles as he/she locates them floating in the air.

-Look at a book with your child and have them point to or search for various pictures and items on the pages.  Look at "Where's Waldo" or similar books that encourage scanning the page.